‘In November 2016, the BBC carried the story Terminally-ill teen won historic ruling to preserve body, following the lifting the territorial reporting restrictions which existed until one month after the death of the teenager concerned, a girl referred to as “JS”: see JS (Disposal of Body), Re [2016] EWCH (Fam). We noted the case here and looked at some of the more general practicalities of regulating cryogenic preservation – the storage of the brains and/or bodies of legally-dead humans at low temperatures. In the aftermath of the ruling in JS, the Charity Commission for England and Wales decided in 2017 to remove the Human Organ Preservation Research Trust (HOPRT) from the Register; and in Hipkiss v Charity Commission for England & Wales [2018] FTT (Charity) CA/2017/0014, Mr Graham Hipkiss, its sole remaining trustee, succeeded in an appeal to the First Tier Charity Tribunal against the order of the Commission.’

‘It is well known that the governing principle of the Land Registration Act 2002 is to enable anyone to be aware of any interest affecting a piece of land by simply inspecting the land register (subject to some limited exceptions, e.g. where a person is in occupation and their interest is likely to be obvious from a reasonable inspection). If an interest affecting the land is not noted within the register then it ought not bind a subsequent registered proprietor.’

‘The applicant, X, who was at all material times in a same-sex relationship with Y, was the biological mother of twins, born as a result of IVF treatment provided by a licensed fertility clinic to Y, the gestational mother and the twins’ legal parent. Y was at all material times in a civil partnership with, though separated from, another woman who was not a party to the proceedings. Y, as the gestational mother, should have signed Form WP, and X, as her partner, should have signed Form PP. In fact, and as a result of what was accepted to have been errors by the clinic, Y completed and signed a Form PP and X completed and signed a Form WP. A similar mistake was made in relation to the Form IC signed by both Y and X. X, supported by Y, sought a declaration pursuant to section 55A of the Family Law Act 1986 that she was, in accordance with section 43 of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008, the legal parent of the twins and in the circumstances it was common ground that X was entitled to the relief she sought. The issues were: (1) whether that was a conclusion that the court could come to simply by a process of construction or whether the proper form of order was a decree of rectification and (2) arising out of the fact that Y was at all material times in a civil partnership with another woman, the potential impact of section 42(1) of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 which provided: “If at the time of the placing in her of the embryo or the sperm and eggs or of her artificial insemination, W was a party to a civil partnership or a marriage with another woman, then subject to section 45(2) to (4), the other party to the civil partnership or marriage is to be treated as a parent of the child unless it is shown that she did not consent to the placing in W of the embryo or the sperm and eggs or to her artificial insemination … ”’

‘A run of recent decisions shows the “increasingly pragmatic approach” that the courts in England are adopting when faced with applications to fix mistakes in pension scheme deeds, an expert has said.’

‘The proprietor of a registered charge which turned out to have been a forged disposition was entitled to payment by way of indemnity under Schedule 8 to the Land Registration Act 2002 in circumstances where the registered proprietor and rightful owner of the property was in actual occupation at the date of the disposition.’

‘Gold Harp Properties Ltd v Macleod & Others [2014] EWCA Civ 1084 is a very important Court of Appeal decision explaining the effect of rectification of the register following a mistake. The effect on the priority of interests created after the mistake but before the rectification is different from what many in the profession thought it was.’

‘David Mtichell, member of No5 Chambers Commercial & Chancery Group, recently gave a talk titled ‘Rectification of Wills Following Marley v Rawlings’ at the No5 Estates Seminar held on 25th September.’

‘Where a mistake made by a solicitor in the execution of a will required its validity to be determined in litigation, funded in the High Court and the Court of Appeal on a traditional basis and in the Supreme Court under contingency fee agreements, the proper order for costs in the High Court and the Court of Appeal was that the solicitor’s insurers should pay the costs of both the successful claimant and the unsuccessful defendants, thereby short-circuiting the approach that, on a reasonable, but unsuccessful, challenge to the validity of a will, the costs should be borne by the estate.’

‘Paragraph 8 of Schedule 4 to the Land Registration Act 2002 permitted the rectification of the land register where there were two competing derivative interests, the first of which had been mistakenly omitted or removed from the register, the second of which had been created during the period of mistaken deregistration and before the rectification of the register by the restoration of the first interest, so that the priority of the interests was changed in order that the first interest upon restoration was given the priority it would have had but for the mistake.’

‘Regulation 5(4) of the Commons (Registration of Town or Village Greens) (Interim Arrangements) (England) Regulations 2007 provided a means for curing deficiencies in an application to register land as a town or village green under section 15 of the Commons Act 2006 and once that application was so cured it was treated as duly made on the date on which the original defective application was lodged. Whether an applicant had been afforded a “reasonable opportunity” by the registration authority to put a defective application in order, for the purposes of regulation 5(4), was a question of law for the court and was not reviewable only on Wednesbury grounds.’

‘Panopticon has previously reported on the novel and important data protection case Steinmetz and Others v Global Witness [2014] EWHC 1186 (Ch). The High Court (Henderson J) has now given a judgment on a procedural point which will set the shape for this litigation.’